How did you come to be at QBN? Tell us the story, no matter how dull.
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- stewart4
It was at a time around 2001 with several mysterious design blogs, one with a squirrel as a logo? Flash, pixel fonts...
There was also a Dutch webcam platform called Collab, the weirdest group conversations every night. Some of them were also active on Newstoday, I think that's how I got into QBN together with a colleague of mine at the design agency where we worked at the time (hi Stewardez! he can't log in to QBN anymore, his password is lost and the old email address no longer exists).
We also went to Amsterdam once for a Newstoday meeting. With Janne, Folkert, Linda, Wouter – a few names I can remember. Not sure if they're still around here. I still have digital photos of it somewhere, made with my first Canon ixus.
- srhadden4
Kanye mentioned it to me once
- MrT4
Early 2000s, In the offices of Dare in London and I asked the two lads I sat near the name of the site they were spending a LOT of time on.
I've no idea whether those two are still here...
- PonyBoy5
20+ years ago (like the rest of you) I'd hop on the web looking for inspirational sites and I'd often come across a MediaTemple logo slapped in the header or footer of sites I was really into... I came to think that was some mark of accomplishment / excellence etc... somewhere along the lines of following the links via sites w/that now defunct shit pile of overpriced internet hosting nonsense I came across NT ...Hi! <3
- Beeswax5
Very dull.
Random design related site search I guess.Why I stayed?
Because of everything that's not design related I think.
- BaskerviIle3
A friend at uni (on a graphic design degree) introduced me to Newstoday. I lurked for a bit, then finally signed up in 2004 during my first proper job. If I had a technical illustrator/PS or web question, I came here and got answers...learnt tons from people on here.
Had my folio featured on the front page early on and even got profiled in some design magazines back in the day (including an interview in a french design publication). Somewhere I still have an email conversation I had with Jason Kristofer.Along the way there have been some fun projects:
The Sketchbook exchange, where we all filled in a spread in a moleskine and then mailed it off to the next person.
Remember the QBN book that we planned to publish? A Better Tomorrow. I still have the artwork for my spread somewhere too.I went to a couple of London pub meetups over the years, which seems a distant memory now.
- formed5
Dunno, the story is probably lost somewhere in the 'signs you're getting old' thread. It was before NT, when there were a billion forum/link sites and Flash was king. So much fun back then, all design and dreams....the beautiful naivete of youth!
- jagara5
Worked at a studio collective in Copenhagen with https://www.qbn.com/homeostatic/… back in the Newstoday era (2005). Eventually signed up myself. And now look at me.
- shapesalad4
Back in the early internet days of 2002 ish, it was the done thing to put on your portfolio website, not just an About Page, Work, Contact page - but also a 'Links' page. Here you'd 'shout out' to your mates or favourite illustrators/designers and other such sites.
I'd spend many an evening getting lost in a rabbit hole of going through link pages to other link pages, stumbling across awesome portfolios and cool sites (back when there was no standard boring UI/UX rules and everyone went crazy with Flash).
And at some point someone must have linked to NewsToday. It was bookmarked and found to be *the* hub for the creative community. I remember promoting my portfolio website on there in that channel where you could post links to your stuff.
Then it change to QBN, and that white background has caused far too many late nights by keeping me awake with it's too bright white. When dark mode?
And my usual work routine is - when at that point where you know the next steps are going to be hard and you need to steel yourself to put something together - ah, just take a break and type 'qbn' in the browser. I never bookmarked and always type 'q' 'b' 'n', like a relfex.
Most the time I think, what a load of gutter trash and odd taste you lot have.. but sometimes the site is useful, or even inspiring.
- Heavybackpack was a good site for a while, but lacked the community of qbn.shapesalad
- utopian1
That is like remembering what outfit that you wore at your 21st birthday party.
- uan3
I was on a mission to discover this new thing called cyber space and probably typed 'design' in altavista.digital.com (search didn't even have an own domain then) and newstoday.com came up.
or maybe someone on irc (I used to hang out in the undernet) told me about this forum on the www.
I liked it because it was well designed with the functionality in the 4 columns and had all this amazing content from designers who liked computers from all around the world. also the public voice was something new to me, I could ask stuff and get answers here.
a big chunk of my knowledge about computers and design came out of this site. there were not a lot of coder / designers around me irl at that time. I think I learned Illustrator from lifeinvector, asked a lot of AS2 questions and later AE questions here and always got better answers than my teachers had in design school.
- Weren’t lifeinvector and transfatty an item at one stage?mort_
- might be the case, they prob. dated or posted something about it in public voice.uan
- I also recall one night somebody was desperate or hungry and transfatty ordered a pizza for that person. that virtual community story blew my mind.uan
- Ha, sweet. What a gent!mort_
- haga4
I've been here since the H73 switch. Not that active but still here.
- hans_glib3
i needed to find out what the young kids were up to.
apprarently this was the place back then.
- CyBrainX2
20 years ago I shared an office with someone who had newstoday.com as his startup page for browser windows. Every time he opened a new window I heard that awful chime until I finally asked him what was causing it.
- Same exact thing here.monospaced
- ^ I think I remember you telling me that once.CyBrainX
- Chimp4
It was 2004 and I was designing the Big Issue (magazine sold by the homeless). My Co worker introduced me to this new drug called News Today. I’ve been consuming it on and off since. I can never seem to get clean.
- rzu-rzu4
some 11 or 12 years ago a dude at work that used to sit next to me used to have Pic of the Day always open and giggled like a stoned hamster from time to time
no idea though when or how I got my login
- cannonball19783
Was pointed to it while in college in 2001. It was Newstoday, and there was a gray site and also a brown site if I remember correctly? K10k, Surfstation, etc were all regular visits along with this one.
Newstooodaaaay! My roommate always sung it after I went to the site, with different variations. Boozetoday, Boobstoday, etc.
- Jrdntnnr4
I googled "good for nothing magazine london". One of the first results is a post from 17 years ago on QBN.
- sea_sea4
My designer bf at the time was on it all the time. There was lots of cool inspo going around and some funny characters. I started lurking, about a year after I decided I wanted to be part of the conversation.
- Krassy4
Kanye West told me about it